Human society has gone from being nomadic hunters to nomadic shoppers.
Human development has been occurring, in some way or the other, ever since humans evolved on this planet. And will continue to happen, well into the future.
Human development, in the broadest sense, is about humans’ relationships and interactions with each other and the environment in order to survive and thrive. Over the past 70 years ‘development’ has become a complex system (even industry) with many different actors involved and in mainstream usage is predominantly linked to the economic growth imperative.
But, I slightly disagree with that idea and concur with what Peet and Harwick noted in the book ‘Theories of development: contentions, arguments, alternatives’:
In the present context of a highly uneven world, a better life for most people means, essentially, meeting basic needs: sufficient food to maintain good health, a safe healthy place in which to live; affordable services available to everyone; and being treated with dignity and respect. Beyond meeting those needs, basic to human survival, the course taken by development is subject to the materials and cultural visions of different societies. The methods and purposes of development are subject to popular, democratic decision making (p. 1).
Everybody wants to develop but ‘how to develop?’ is the question where most people’s answers differ.
I would also like to expand on the ideas of material and cultural visions of development.
Material development includes things like food, shelter and clothes, which cover the basic human needs. And, we are on the road to reach the Sustainable Development Goals as set by the UNGA, which we hopefully achieve by 2030 (or maybe earlier!). But, the achievement of these goals might get pushed back a little due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
I also consider that the current idea of materialism, mostly prevalent in the urban regions, largely affects the efforts towards attaining a more sustainable world. For example, India requires another 2.5 countries like itself to sustain at the current consumption levels. Now, I’m pretty sure that this overshoot is majorly by the rich and the middle-class at the most. Anyone with a sane mind can figure out that the poor are definitely not overusing resources. Some of them don’t even have access to enough resources to ensure a full stomach and a roof over their head, so forget about anything else! And at the current global consumption levels, we will require 1.7 earths to sustain and we’re fast approaching 2 earths by 2030. Hopefully, the SDGs will avert this crisis. Moreover, we would require 5 earths to sustain our needs if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American. So, what I’m trying to say is that economic development, on which the SDGs heavily focus on, does not necessarily mean a better quality of life for everyone. Throughout history, apart from a few severe lows, the economy has been developing fast. But, the divide between the richest 1 billion and the poorest 1 billion, has only grown wider.
Cultural vision of development requires the freedom of practicing one’s culture without any fear, something which is provided in most parts of the world on paper but not so much in practice. It also requires the preservation of one’s culture through institutions which educate people about it.
Even today, we’re seeing so many cases of discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, colour etc. There still exists this feeling of ‘otherisation’ that is triggering our primitive responses to threats. This is one of the biases that we need to overcome in order to achieve human development in a true sense. A Ted Talk by Elizabeth Lesser really got me thinking about this.
I also regard education to be a torch-bearer in terms of attaining human development. I will discuss this in more detail in my upcoming articles in this series.
All in all, the policy and decision making needs to be along these lines so that every single individual around the world has access to the basic living necessities and to education.
“You cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do is like a farmer create the conditions under which it will begin to flourish.”
Sir Ken Robinson
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